Title: Mermaid
Author: eviebean
Rating: none, it's fluff.
Summary: How Duke and Lucy met, sort of.
Disclaimer: A whole bloody year, dude, you'd think someone who owned the show wouldn't torture the viewers with such a long wait.
Pairing: none, really, unless you count minor Simon/Lucy
Author's Notes: I have a thing about Duke fishing Audrey out of the water in the pilot and how that worked given his past with Lucy. Reviews are love.
Mermaid
The first time Duke Crocker laid eyes on Lucy Ripley, he thought she was a mermaid.
He'd woken up in the middle of the night by stumbling and voices, and he'd heard his father argue with Garland Wournos in the hall below. He'd snuck out of bed, in that same manner he used on Christmas morning. He peeked in through the doorway and saw his father bending over a sleeping woman. She'd been soaking wet, and when his father came to the door, he quickly ran back to his room.
The woman had remained asleep, and one afternoon, he'd invited his friends over to come look at her. They'd snuck up the stairs, and he'd theatrically shushed everyone before opening the door. Bill, who'd been afraid of pretty much everything, had kept watch by the door.
He and Geoff stood over her, daring each other to wake her up. He'd stuck out a finger, touching her cheek. There wasn't much Duke remembered after that, because his father had come in behind them and promptly kicked them out.
A few days later, he'd come home from school and found her sitting at the kitchen table, staring at a plate of eggs in front of her. Her hair was still wet, and the late afternoon light made the reddish brown hair glow. He'd sat down beside her and held out the fork to her, showing her how to use it. She'd looked at him in wonder, and imitated the gesture (looking back, to humour him, but then Lucy was always in for games).
He knew little of who she was, only that his father called her Lucy and that she never really spoke with words. However, when he brought out the board games, her eyes would light up in delight.
One summer day, his father took him and Lucy over to a small cove for a day at the beach, and he'd seen her dive off a cliff and disappear under the water without making a splash. Until the day he witnessed her packing a suitcase, and the day she swam back out of his life, he'd believed she was a mermaid.
Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
The first time Duke Crocker laid eyes on Audrey Parker, he believed she was a ghost.
Twenty seven years ago, he remembered a woman looking just like her, with big blue eyes and a love of board games and cliff diving. He'd thought she was a mermaid, because when you're seven, you still can.
He'd fished her out of the water, and the first thing he noticed was the way she lay limp in his arms. He knew that position, the exact same one he'd seen in his father's arms all those years ago.
While undressing her, she sighs a little, and he can swear she's saying „Simon", but it's too faint and his heart is beating too fast. He covers her with the blankets and touches his finger to her cheek, and trails it down her cheekbone.
„I missed you"
He gets up and walks out, and thinks that he should probably find out where he's hidden the board games.